Lowering Alkalinity

[kilteddj]

My Alk is at 3.5 and I need to get it down to where it's should be. I did a 20% water change a few days ago, but added a couple of fish yesterday, is there any natural additive I can add to lower the Alkalinity?

Cheers,

Brent

 

[vince]

hi, it is hard to give a worthy answer without knowing facts. there are many reasons why your ph is high ( firstly a bad test kit). usually ph is on the lower end of 8.3 due to the production of acids generated from life forms in the tank. do not use any additive to lower ph except for RO or distilled water. if indeed you are interested I will give you a more complete list because at this point I am in the dark as it concerns your parameters size & setup capacity etc. and I could do more harm than good.

 

[dustin_P74]

vince he said alk not ph

 

[vince]

oop's sorry! the request I made for more tank info is still needed

 

[yote]

Is that 3.5 mEq/L or mg/l?

 

[kilteddj]

Hi, the measurement is in mEq/L. I am unsure what other info you need, fish are fine otherwise, corals are dong great. Nitrates have lowered significantly over the past few days as I added Caulerpa and Mangroves into my fuge. PH is fine also. Using a Seachem test kit and I am running a 75gallon stretched hex.

 

[ccCapt]

3.5 meq/l = 9.8 dKH = 175 ppm. That is fine. No need to make any changes.

 

[yote]

+1 Capt.

 

[dan55gallonhex]

mine is alot higher than that and im useing ro/di water its just that my water here is very hard. the weird thing is that my ph is just fine at 8.3 and no ammonia and no nitrates i cant explain it and noone i talked to could ether

 

[vince]

hi kilt, sorry it took so long for me to get back to you. in reef keeping the variables that can skew one or many things is always present. when a person says he/she has a problem with one aspect of parameters and all others are ok then this leads to the belief that the test kit is in error. if this is true, can you take a sample elsewhere to be tested ie: fish store, friend? to elaborate a bit on the cations. calcium and alk pretty much run hand in hand with each other. high alk can be due to low calcium, and the reverse is true also)
to maintain alk calcium should be in the 380 to 400 ppm range (sea water is 425 - 450 ppm. the other major component of skewing alk is co2 if the water surface is obstructed then co2 can not escape leading to high alk. an air stone in the tank will drive off co2. as stated the deciding or limiting factors can only be eleminated one by one till the problem is solved. can you test your ca & get a different test of your alk? if you have live rock and aragonite substrate then there are really only 2 causes for high alk.